Poems Rethabile Likes

The Laughing Thrush by W. S. Merwin The Laughing Thrush O nameless joy of the morning tumbling upward note by note out of the night and the hush of the dark valley and out of whatever has not been there song unquestioning and unbounded yes this is the place and the one time in the whole of before and after with all of memory waking into it and the lost visages that hover around the edge of sleep constant and clear and the words that lately have fallen silent to surface among the phrases of some future if there is a future here is where they all sing the first daylight whether or not there is anyone listening Poet: W. S. Merwin Source: Merwin Conservancy Books: The Shadow ...

September by Jennifer Michael Hecht September Tonight there must be people who are getting what they want. I let my oars fall into the water. Good for them. Good for them, getting what they want. The night is so still that I forget to breathe. The dark air is getting colder. Birds are leaving. Tonight there are people getting just what they need. The air is so still that it seems to stop my heart. I remember you in a black and white photograph taken this time of some year. You were leaning against a half-shed tree, standing in the leaves the tree had lost. When I finally exhale it takes forever to be over. Tonight, there are people who are so happy, that they have forgotten to worry about tomorrow. Somewhere, people have entirely forgotten about tomorrow. My hand trails in the water. I should not have dropped those oars. Such a s...

American Smooth by Rita Dove American Smooth We were dancing—it must have been a foxtrot or a waltz, something romantic but requiring restraint, rise and fall, precise execution as we moved into the next song without stopping, two chests heaving above a seven-league stride—such perfect agony, one learns to smile through, ecstatic mimicry being the sine qua non of American Smooth. And because I was distracted by the effort of keeping my frame (the leftward lean, head turned just enough to gaze out past your ear and always smiling, smiling), I didn’t notice how still you’d become until we had done it (for two measures? four?)—achieved flight, that swift and serene magnificence, before the earth remembered who we were and brought us down. Poet: Rita Dove Source: @PoetryFound...

Bui Thi Kim Thanh by Rethabile Masilo Bui Thi Kim Thanh translated by Pamela Mordecai Dem go inna yu ouse, and take yu inna one trunk to de clinic at BiênHòa. De self same day rain come: de rain god did get drunk for so! Dem go inna yu ouse, and take yu inna one trunk pass de DôngNai valley fill up wid junk fran di war, out to de place where de rain chop ’way bark and bast same way. Some man —dem go inna yu ouse, and take yu inna one trunk to de clinic at BiênHòa de self same day. Poet: Rethabile Masilo Source: Qoaling (Collection) Book: Buy on Amazon The poem was inspired by this article .

Prayer by Carol Ann Duffy Prayer Some days, although we cannot pray, a prayer utters itself. So, a woman will lift her head from the sieve of her hands and stare at the minims sung by a tree, a sudden gift. Some nights, although we are faithless, the truth enters our hearts, that small familiar pain; then a man will stand stock-still, hearing his youth in the distant Latin chanting of a train. Pray for us now. Grade 1 piano scales console the lodger looking out across a Midlands town. Then dusk, and someone calls a child’s name as though they named their loss. Darkness outside. Inside, the radio’s prayer — Rockall. Malin. Dogger. Finisterre. Poet: Carol Ann Duffy Source: @CamdenPublicLibrary Books: @AbeBooks

In a Dark Time by Theodore Roethke In a Dark Time In a dark time, the eye begins to see, I meet my shadow in the deepening shade; I hear my echo in the echoing wood-- A lord of nature weeping to a tree, I live between the heron and the wren, Beasts of the hill and serpents of the den. What's madness but nobility of soul At odds with circumstance? The day's on fire! I know the purity of pure despair, My shadow pinned against a sweating wall, That place among the rocks--is it a cave, Or winding path? The edge is what I have. A steady storm of correspondences! A night flowing with birds, a ragged moon, And in broad day the midnight come again! A man goes far to find out what he is-- Death of the self in a long, tearless night, All natural shapes blazing unnatural light. Dark, dark my light, and darker my desire. My soul, lik...

Try to Praise the Mutilated World by Adam Zagajewski Try to Praise the Mutilated World Try to praise the mutilated world. Remember June’s long days, and wild strawberries, drops of rosé wine. The nettles that methodically overgrow the abandoned homesteads of exiles. You must praise the mutilated world. You watched the stylish yachts and ships; one of them had a long trip ahead of it, while salty oblivion awaited others. You’ve seen the refugees going nowhere, you’ve heard the executioners sing joyfully. You should praise the mutilated world. Remember the moments when we were together in a white room and the curtain fluttered. Return in thought to the concert where music flared. You gathered acorns in the park in autumn and leaves eddied over the earth’s scars. Praise the mutilated world and the...

Instead of Depression by Andrea Gibson Instead of Depression try calling it hibernation. Imagine the darkness is a cave in which you will be nurtured by doing absolutely nothing. Hibernating animals don’t even dream. It’s okay if you can’t imagine Spring. Sleep through the alarm of the world. Name your hopelessness a quiet hollow, a place you go to heal, a den you dug, Sweetheart, instead of a grave. Poet: Andrea Gibson Source: @AlisonMcGhee Books: @AbeBooks

Allegro by Tomas Tranströmer Allegro After a black day, I play Haydn, and feel a little warmth in my hands. The keys are ready. Kind hammers fall. The sound is spirited, green, and full of silence. The sound says that freedom exists and someone pays no tax to Caesar. I shove my hands in my haydnpockets and act like a man who is calm about it all. I raise my haydnflag. The signal is: "We do not surrender. But want peace." The music is a house of glass standing on a slope; rocks are flying, rocks are rolling. The rocks roll straight through the house but every pane of glass is still whole. Translated from the Swedish by Robert Bly Poet: Tomas Tranströmer Source: @AYearOfBeingHere Books: @AbeBooks

We Two by H.D. We Two We two are left: I with small grace reveal distaste and bitterness; you with small patience take my hands; though effortless, you scald their weight as a bowl, lined with embers, wherein droop great petals of white rose, forced by the heat too soon to break. We two are left: as a blank wall, the world, earth and the men who talk, saying their space of life is good and gracious, with eyes blank as that blank surface their ignorance mistakes for final shelter and a resting-place. We two remain: yet by what miracle, searching within the tangles of my brain, I ask again, have we two met within this maze of dædal paths in-wound mid grievous stone, where once I stood alone? Poet: H.D. (Hilda Doolitle) Source: @Poets.org Books: @AbeBooks

Pantoum for Black Boys by Taylor Byas --> Pantoum for Black Boys after 'African Night Market' by Walter Battiss (1965) As the sky’s colors separate like oil in water, black men turn blue in the sunset. Flies hover over the tables, circle like buzzards; fruit left for dead. Black men turn blue in the sunset like cotton dipped in indigo. Police circle like buzzards, fruit left for dead – a red smudge on a white sheet. Like cotton dipped in indigo, police lights spotlight the streets; a red smudge on a white sheet marks the end of childhoods. Lights spotlight the streets, but the dark squares of sidewalk mark the end of childhoods, and the mothers have nothing but the dark squares of sidewalk to blame. We light candles, we pray, and the mothers have nothing but an empty room to fill, to lock away, to blame. We light candl...

The Tradition by Jericho Brown The Tradition Aster. Nasturtium. Delphinium. We thought Fingers in dirt were moving. We thought Up names for flowers and what for weeds. We pushed North. We planted seeds. We forgot how we died. That year we had Enough rain for the gardens. We had Plenty to eat. The flowers we had Hung their heads like girls in church. We forgot who we were. We had The sun on our backs. We had The names for things. The names for things. The flowers we had were not the names For flowers. We had the things. We had The soil. We had the light. We had The air. We had the tradition. Aster. Nasturtium. Delphinium. John Crawford. Eric Garner. Mike Brown. Poet: Jericho Brown Source: @PoetryFoundation Books: @AbeBooks

Frederick Douglass by Robert Hayden | Poems Rethabile Likes “Frederick Douglass,” by Robert Hayden Shawntay Henry reads the poem 'Frederick Douglass' by Robert Hayden . Read along

I Asked To Be Lush, To Be Green by Jane Hirshfield I Asked To Be Lush, To Be Green I asked to be lush, to be green. I pressed myself to the clear glass between wanting and world. I wanted to be lush, tropical, excessive. To be green. On the glass that does not exist, small breath-clouds rose, dissolved. A creature of water, I found myself. Tender, still also of air. The dry bark of trees sequestered its hidden rising. I told my want: patience. I offered my want the old promise— a tree not wet to the touch is wet to the living. Poet: Jane Hirshfield Source: @Terrain.org Books: @AbeBooks A tree not wet to the touch is wet to the living. ...